About 15 km from the city of Nagasaki is an abandoned island, uninhabited but submerged in mysteries. Hashima Island, once a coal mining mecca at sea, is a stark representation of Japan’s rapid industrialization.
In fact, this island is also known as Gunkanjima (meaning Battleship Island), the reason it got its name because the shape of the island is very similar to a Japanese battleship. Historically, Hashima Island officially operated as a coal mining facility from 1887 until 1974.
However, when coal reserves began to dry up and oil began to replace coal, the island was forced to close and its inhabitants also left.
After that, Hashima Island was ignored for almost three decades. But as the abandoned concrete walls gradually crumbled over time and flora flourished, this ruined island has attracted the attention of those interested in the integrity of historical sites. history.
Coal was first discovered on the island around 1810, and the island was continuously inhabited from 1887 to 1974 as a seabed coal mining facility. Mitsubishi Goshi Kaisha bought the island in 1890 and began extracting coal from undersea mines, while seawalls and reclamation (which tripled the size of the island) were carried out. construction practice.
However, the past of Hashima Island is not so simple.
During World War II, Japan brought here Korean civilians and Chinese prisoners of war to do forced labor. As far as we know today, during that time period the island was considered hell on earth, an estimated 1,300 workers died on the island between the 1930s and the end of the war due to the conditions. unsafe work, malnutrition and burnout.
Four main mines (with a depth of up to 1 km) were built, with one actually connecting Hashima to a neighboring island. Between 1891 and 1974, about 15.7 million tons of coal were mined in mines with a temperature of 30 degrees Celsius and a humidity of 95%.
Coal was first discovered on this 16-acre island in the early 1800s. In its efforts to catch up with the Western colonial powers, Japan began a period of rapid industrial development in the mid-1980s. 1800s and the island of Hashima was used to try to materialize this endeavor.
After Mitsubishi purchased the island in 1890, the company built and developed breakwaters and began coal mining as Japan’s first major undersea coal mining operation.
In 1916, the company built Japan’s first large reinforced concrete building (a 7-story block of apartments for miners), to accommodate their growing workforce. Concrete is used specifically to protect against tropical storm damage. Over the next 55 years, many buildings were built, including apartment blocks, schools, kindergartens, hospitals, town halls, and community centers. To serve the entertainment needs, a club, cinema, community bath, swimming pool, rooftop garden, shop and pachinko room were built for the miners and their families.
In 1916, a seven-story apartment building (Japan’s first large reinforced concrete building) was built for the island’s miners. Accordingly, other facilities such as schools and hospitals are also gradually built so that coal mining can be more stable.
Map showing Hashima Island.
Over time, the island flourished and became one of the important coal mining facilities of Japan in the past, in 1959 the population on the island reached 5,259.
In the 1960s, coal mines across Japan began to close as oil became the number one alternative. In January 1974, Mitsubishi closed the mines at Hashima Island.
Of course, when activities stop working, people will have to leave as well. In just three months, the island was wiped out of all activities. Accordingly, the architectural works after the island was abandoned also gradually collapsed and became ruins over time.
Beginning in the 1930s and until the end of World War II, Korean enlisted civilians and Chinese prisoners of war were forced to work under very harsh conditions and brutal treatment. at Mitsubishi facilities as forced laborers under Japan’s wartime mobilization policy. During this time, an estimated 1,300 enlisted workers died on the island from various hazards, including underground accidents, exhaustion and malnutrition.
Even after the population dwindled to zero, Mitsubishi maintained ownership of the island until 2002, when they voluntarily transferred the island to the town of Takashima. Currently, the city of Nagasaki, which annexed the town of Takashima in 2005, has full jurisdiction over the island.
In the past, thousands of women, men and children lived and worked on this island, exploiting the coal mines under the sea, contributing to the rapid growth of Japanese industry in the late 2000s. 19th century. Today, it’s become a popular tourist attraction, a site shaped like a naval frigate.
The area is only 6.3 hectares, but Gunkanjima has 71 buildings, buildings, coal mine lines. At its peak in 1959, the island was once the most crowded in the world, so cramped that more than 5,000 people were crammed into a building measuring about 0.16 square kilometers. This island is also the inspiration for the movie Hell Island produced by Korea in 2017.